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What if Walt Disney was the producer of Looney Tunes/Walt Disney Animated Classics/Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated musical romantic fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The 48th Disney animated feature film and the fifth released during the Disney Renaissance period, it is based on the French fairy tale of the same name by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (who was also credited in the English version as well as in the French version), and ideas from the 1946 French film of the same name directed by Jean Cocteau. Beauty and the Beast focuses on the relationship between the Beast (voice of Robby Benson), a prince who is magically transformed into a monster and his servants into household objects as punishment for his arrogance, and Belle (voice of Paige O'Hara), a young woman whom he imprisons in his castle. To become a prince again, Beast must learn to love Belle and earn her love in return before the last petal from the enchanted rose that the enchantress who cursed the Beast had offered falls, or else the Beast will remain a monster forever. The film also features the voices of Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Stiers, and Angela Lansbury. Walt Disney first attempted unsuccessfully to adapt Beauty and the Beast into an animated film during the 1930s and 1950s. Following the success of The Little Mermaid (1989), Walt decided to adapt the fairy tale, which Richard Purdum originally conceived as a non-musical. Walt Disney eventually dismissed Purdum's idea and ordered that the film be a musical similar to The Little Mermaid, All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) and The Prince and the Pauper (1990) instead. The film was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, with a screenplay by Linda Woolverton story first credited to Roger Allers. Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken wrote the film's songs. Ashman, who additionally served as the film's executive producer along with Steven Speiberg, died of AIDS-related complications eight months before the film's release, and the film is thus dedicated to his memory. Beauty and the Beast premiered as an unfinished film at the New York Film Festival on September 29, 1991, followed by its theatrical release as a completed film at the El Capitan Theatre on November 13. The film was a box office success, grossing $425 million worldwide on a $25 million budget. Beauty and the Beast received positive reviews from critics; it won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and became the first animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for its title song. In April 1994, Beauty and the Beast became Disney's first animated film to be adapted into a Broadway musical. After the success of the 3D re-release of The Lion King, the film was reissued in 3D in 2012. In 2002, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". A live-action remake of the film directed by Bill Condon was released on March 17, 2017. Plot The film takes place in rural France presumably in the late 18th century. In the film's prologue, an enchantress disguised as an old beggar woman offers a selfish young prince a rose in exchange for a night's shelter from the extreme cold, as a test of his heart and emotion. When he turns her away, repulsed by her old and ugly appearance and sneering at the simple but lovely gift, she turns into her enchantress form and punishes him by transforming him into an ugly beast and turns his servants into furniture and other household items, despite his pleas for forgiveness for his behavior. She gives him a magic mirror that will enable him to view faraway events and also gives him the rose, which will bloom until his 21st birthday. He must love and be loved in return before all the rose's petals have fallen off, or he will remain a beast forever. Ten years later, a beautiful but unusual young woman named Belle lives in a nearby unnamed French village with her father Maurice, who is an inventor. Belle loves reading and yearns for a life beyond the village. She is also the object of frequent unwanted attention and lust from the arrogant hunter, Gaston, who, along with his henchcats Tin, Pan and Alley, wants to marry her and make her his "little wife" who will bear him handsome sons, cook the food and scrub the floors. Maurice's latest invention is a wood-chopping machine. When he rides off to display the machine at the fair, he loses his way in the woods and stumbles upon the Beast's castle, where he meets the transformed servants Lumière (who was turned into a candelabra), Cogsworth (who was turned into a mantle clock), Mrs. Potts (who was turned into a teapot), her son Chip (who was turned into a teacup), Fifi (who was turned into a feather duster), Maestro Cadenza (who was turned into a harpsichord) and Madame de Garderobe (who was turned into a wardrobe). After getting used to seeing talking objects, the servants warm him by the fire, only to be found by the Beast, who is not happy to find a trespasser in his castle and frightens his servants. The Beast imprisons Maurice, but Belle is led back to the castle by Maurice's horse, Philippe, and offers to take her father's place. When the Beast agrees to this and sends him home, Maurice tells Gaston, his henchcats and the other villagers what happened, but they think he has lost his mind, so he goes to rescue her alone, but gets lost on his way back to the Beast's castle. Meanwhile, Belle refuses the Beast's "invitation" to dinner, and the Beast orders his servants not to let her eat, but Lumière serves her dinner anyway (in the song "Be Our Guest") and Cogsworth gives her a tour of the castle. However, she wanders off on her own and finds the West Wing, which the Beast had forbidden her to go into. She goes in anyway, discovering many broken items, including a shredded portrait of a young prince and the enchanted rose. Before she can touch it, the Beast sees her and angrily screams at her to get out. Frightened, Belle tries to escape, but she and Philippe are attacked by wolves. Suddenly, the Beast miraculously arrives at her rescue and fends off the wolves, showing that he may have some feelings towards her. After Belle nurses the Beast's wounds, the servants tell her about the spell and tell also than the Beast's coldness and selfish nature was due to his father's negative influence especially after his mother's death. The Beast then gives Belle the castle library as a gift, and they become friends. Later, they have a romantic ballroom dance. However, afterwards, Belle feels lonely at missing her father. When Beast lets her use an Enchanted Mirror the enchantress gave him, she sees her father dying in the woods as he struggles to come to her rescue, and with only hours left before the rose wilts, the Beast allows her to leave, giving her the mirror to remember him by. This horrifies the servants, who fear they will never be humans again. Belle finds Maurice and takes him home, but Gaston and his henchcats arrive with a lynch mob led by Monsieur D'Arque of the local insane asylum. Unless she agrees to marry Gaston, Monsieur D'Arque will lock her father up. Belle proves Maurice sane by showing them the Beast with the magic mirror, but when Belle furiously confronts Gaston after he mocks her for being in love with a "monster" by saying that he is the real monster, Gaston becomes jealous, snaps, and arouses the mob's fear of the Beast, leading them to the castle to kill him. Gaston locks Belle and Maurice in their basement, but Chip, who stowed away in Belle's luggage, chops the basement door apart with Maurice's machine, allowing Belle and Maurice to hurry back to the Beast's castle on Phillipe. While the servants and the mob battle for control of the castle, Gaston wanders off by himself and, finding the Beast, attacks him. By being too depressed to speak, the Beast unintentionally reinforces the preconception that he is dumb. The Beast regains his will when he sees Belle arriving at the castle. After winning a heated battle, the Beast spares Gaston's life and climbs up to a balcony where Belle is waiting. Unknown to them, Gaston has secretly followed the Beast and, still consumed by his lust for Belle and jealousy of the Beast, stabs him from behind, mortally wounding the Beast, but this proves to be his downfall as he loses his balance and falls off the balcony to his death. As Belle finds out that the Beast truly loves her as he lies on the ground, apparently dead from his injuries, she begins weeping over his loss and sadly whispers that she loves him, just as the final petal from the enchanted rose falls off, breaking the spell. Belle watches in amazement as the Beast is revived and turned back into a human. Belle studies him carefully, recognizing him as the man from the portrait in the West Wing, and seeing that he still has the same eyes, she says "It is you!" The two kiss, turning the servants human and transforming the castle back into its original elegance. The last scene shows Belle and the prince dancing in the ballroom as her father and the servants happily watch them, while Lumière and Cogsworth enter a feud. Cast Production Early versions After the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, Walt Disney sought out other stories to adapt into feature films, with Beauty and the Beast being among the stories he considered. Attempts to develop the Beauty and the Beast story into a film were made in the 1930s and 1950s, but were ultimately given up because it "proved to be a challenge" for the story team. Peter M. Nichols states Disney may later have been discouraged due to Jean Cocteau having already done his 1946 version. Decades later, during the production of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1987, the Disney studio resurrected Beauty and the Beast as a project for the satellite animation studio it had set up in London, England to work on Roger Rabbit. Richard Williams, who had directed the animated portions of Roger Rabbit, was approached to direct but declined in favor of continuing work on his long-gestating project The Thief and the Cobbler. In his place, Williams recommended his colleague, English animation director Richard Purdum and Disney veteran animation director Don Bluth, and work began under producer Don Hahn on a non-musical version of Beauty and the Beast set in 19th-century France. At the behest of Walt Disney, Beauty and the Beast became the first Disney animated film to use a screenwriter. This was an unusual production move for an animated film, which is traditionally developed on storyboards rather than in scripted form. Linda Woolverton wrote the original draft of the story before storyboarding began, and worked with the story team to retool and develop the film. Script rewrite and musicalization Upon seeing the initial storyboard reels in 1989, Walt Disney ordered that the film be scrapped and started over from scratch. A few months after starting anew, Purdum and Bluth resigned as directors, with Bluth working in Rock-a-Doodle instead. The studio had approached Ron Clements and John Musker to direct the film, but they turned down the offer, saying they were "tired" after just having finished directing Disney's recent success The Little Mermaid. Disney then hired first-time feature directors Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale. Wise and Trousdale had previously directed the animated sections of Cranium Command, a short film for a Disney EPCOT theme park attraction. In addition, Walt Disney asked songwriters Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, who had written the song score for The Little Mermaid, to turn Beauty and the Beast into a Broadway-style musical film in the same vein as Mermaid. Ashman, who at the time had learned he was dying of complications from AIDS, had been working with Disney on a pet project of his, Aladdin, and only reluctantly agreed to join the struggling production team. To accommodate Ashman's failing health, pre-production of Beauty and the Beast was moved from London to the Residence Inn in Fishkill, New York, close to Ashman's New York City home. Here, Ashman and Menken joined Wise, Trousdale, Hahn, and Woolverton in retooling the film's script. Since the original story had only two major characters, the filmmakers enhanced them, added new characters in the form of enchanted household items who "add warmth and comedy to a gloomy story" and guide the audience through the film, and added a "real villain" in the form of Gaston. Originally, a character named LeFou was supposed to being Gaston's sidekick, but Wise and Trousdale felt the character could causing some controversies due to some scenes showing him as a bisexual character, which they decided to remplace him with recurring Disney film characters Tin, Pan and Alley, though he would make a cameo appearance as one of the villagers fighting the servants during the battle scene in the finished film. These ideas were somewhat similar to elements of the 1946 French film version of Beauty and the Beast, which introduced the character of Avenant, an oafish suitor somewhat similar to Gaston, as well as inanimate objects coming to life in the Beast's castle. The animated objects were, however, given distinct personalities in the Disney version. By early 1990, Walt had approved the revised script, and storyboarding began again. The production flew story artists back and forth between California and New York for storyboard approvals from Ashman, though the team was not told the reason why. Casting and recording Animation Music Ashman and Menken wrote the Beauty song score during the pre-production process in Fishkill, the opening operetta-styled "Belle" being their first composition for the film. Other songs included "Be Our Guest", sung (in its original version) to Maurice by the objects when he becomes the first visitor to eat at the castle in a decade; "Gaston", a solo for the swaggering villain, "If I Can't Love Her", which the Beast sings after he frightens Belle away from the castle, wondering if he will ever be able to love anyone since he struggles to love her: "Something There", where Belle and Beast sing (via voiceover) of their growing fondness for each other, "Human Again", a song describing Belle and Beast's growing love from the objects' perspective; the love ballad "Beauty and the Beast (Tale as Old as Time)"; and the climactic "The Mob Song". As story and song development came to a close, full production began in Burbank while voice and song recording began in New York City. The Beauty songs were mostly recorded live with the orchestra and the voice cast performing simultaneously rather than overdubbed separately, in order to give the songs a cast album-like "energy" the filmmakers and songwriters desired. During the course of production, many changes were made to the structure of the film, necessitating the replacement and re-purposing of songs. After screening a mostly animated version of the "Be Our Guest" sequence, Walt Disney and story artist Bruce Woodside suggested that the objects should be singing the song to Belle rather than her father. Wise and Trousdale agreed, and the sequence and song were retooled to replace Maurice with Belle. The film's title song went through a noted bit of uncertainty during production. Originally conceived as a rock-oriented song, it was changed to a slow, romantic ballad. Howard Ashman and Alan Menken asked Angela Lansbury to perform the song, but she did not think her voice was suited for the melody. When she voiced her doubts, Menken and Ashman asked her for at least one take and told her to perform the song as she saw fit. Lansbury reportedly reduced everyone in the studio to tears with her rendition, nailing the song in the one take asked of her. This version went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. "Human Again" was dropped from the film before animation began, as Walt felted its lyrics caused story problems about the timeline over which the story takes place. This required Ashman and Menken to write a new song in its place. "Days in the Sun" in which the Beast's servants and Belle reminisce about earlier parts of their lives, was composed late in production and inserted into the script in place of "Human Again". "If I Can't Love Her" was also dropped from the film since due to the remake's three-act structure, Walt concluded that it would be best to replace "If I Can't Love Her" with a song that better depicts the Beast's feelings for Belle after he has finally learned to love her and realizes she is no longer his prisoner, while accepting the grimm reality that releasing her would ultimately decrease his chances of becoming human again. Ashman and Menken further convinced the composer to substitute "If I Can't Love Her" with a more appropriate song. "Evermore" which is sung shortly after he releases Belle from the castle so that she may go to save her father from the cold, was composed and inserted in place of "If I Can't Love Her". Menken would later revise "Human Again" and "If I Can't Love Her" for inclusion in the 1994 Broadway stage version of Beauty and the Beast, and another revised version of "Human Again" was added to the film itself in a new sequence created for the film's Special Edition re-release in 2002. Ashman died of AIDS-related complications at the age of 40 on March 14, 1991, eight months before the film's release. He never saw the finished film, though he did get to see it in its unfinished format. Ashman's work on Aladdin and Thumbelina was completed by fellow lyricists Tim Rice, Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman, respectively. Before Ashman's death, members of the film's production team visited him after the film's well-received first screening, with Walt Disney commenting that "the film would be a great success. Who'd have thought it?", to which Ashman replied with "I would". A tribute to the lyricist was included at the end of the credits crawl: "To our friend, Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice, and a beast his soul. We will be forever grateful. Howard Ashman: 1950–1991." A pop version of the "Beauty and the Beast" theme, performed by Céline Dion and Peabo Bryson over the end credits, was released as a commercial single from the film's soundtrack, supported with a music video. The Dion/Bryson version of "Beauty and the Beast" became an international pop hit and performed considerably well on charts around the world. The song became Dion's second single to land within the top-10 of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number nine. The song peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary chart. In Canada, "Beauty and the Beast" peaked at number two. Outside of North America, the song peaked within the top ten in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, while peaking within the top twenty in Australia, Netherlands, and Ireland. The song sold over a million copies worldwide. This version of the song was also nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammys, and it won the Grammy for Dion and Bryson for Best Pop Duo/Group Vocal Performance. Release Re-issues Home media Soundtrack Reception and legacy Critical response Box office Accolades Adaptations Broadway musical Live-action film Trivia *